


Slippery When Wet

by the_random_writer



Series: Trek Tales [2]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Accidents, Crack, Gen, Scottish Character, Secrets, Swimming, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-24 03:09:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8354578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_random_writer/pseuds/the_random_writer
Summary: When the Enterprise is assigned to a slightly duller than normal mission, the junior crewmembers find an unusual way to have some fun. Doctor McCoy decides to join in - a decision he may come to regret.Loosely connected to the previous entry in the series, but can be read as a standalone story.





	

At the end of the day, when all of the mess had been tidied up, when all of the broken bones and bruises had healed, when all of the reports had been written and filed, it was Doctor McCoy who took the blame.

On second thoughts, perhaps blame was too strong a word. Blame implied that he'd stepped out of line and done something _dreadfully_ wrong. Which he had. Sort of. Except no, not really. Rules had indeed been broken (as well as some equipment and a range of bones), but in the grand scheme of things, the 'crime' he'd committed was pretty minor and not exactly a hanging offence.

Besides, it wasn't as if he'd been the brains behind the whole, ridiculous operation. That particular honour lay with the newly promoted Lieutenant McDonald, who accompanied the irascible medic into his moment of corrective shame. But she was a junior engineer, with just over two years of service under her belt, while he was a senior member of the crew, and a full-on Department Head to boot.

When he'd found out what McDonald was doing, not only had he declined to shut her shenanigans down, he'd actually given her his full support and told her to carry on, knowing full well she must be violating dozens of rules. And then, to make matters even worse, he'd had the temerity to actually join in on the fun. Talk about conduct unbecoming to the dignity of one's station and rank?

So even though Lieutenant McDonald attempted to shoulder all of the blame, much of it landed squarely at Leonard's door. Not that McCoy gave a good God damn one way or the other. As anyone who knew him well would confirm, when it came to the finer points of Starfleet rules and regulations, the field in which he sowed his fucks was a barren and lifeless land.

In his opinion (sometimes humble, usually not) the adventure had been well worth the trouble, and if given the choice, he wouldn't hesitate to do it all over again. It wasn't as if Starfleet Command was going to kick him out of the fleet, and he couldn't remember when he'd last had so much fun without turning to either booze or sex. So he graciously accepted both the black marks and the blame, earning him the temporary ire of the Chief Engineer, but the support, respect and admiration of most of the junior crew.

********************

What _were_ the shenanigans in question, and how had they come to pass?

Three weeks before, in a moment of either well-intentioned folly or extremely understated spite, Admiral Morrow had given the Enterprise one of the dullest and least exciting assignments in the history of the Federation; collecting detailed scientific readings on an unusual gravitic anomaly that was forming in a lightly travelled region of space.

In the illustrious Admiral's defense, he probably assumed the crew would be pleased and relieved to receive such an uneventful task, since gravitic anomalies generally didn't while away the hours by attempting to destroy your ship or telepathically control all of the heterosexual males in your crew. And the less said about _that_ particular incident, the better.

Some members of the crew had indeed been totally and utterly thrilled. Spock had greeted the Captain's announcement of where they were heading next with the closest thing his friends had seen yet to the Vulcan version of rampant glee. Upon arriving at the site, he and the entire astrophysics team, as well as a few of the more scientifically-minded engineers, had sequestered themselves in a special lab, and had barely been seen or heard from since.

Since the ship was holding well away from the anomaly's gravitic pull, Scotty decided it was time to take the engines down, to carry out some upgrade work he'd been planning for the last couple of months.

Captain Kirk, being such a decent, lenient, _awesome_ guy, placed the rest of the crew on stand-down hours, which meant that as long as basic operational tasks were completed on a daily basis, and no essential work or maintenance was ignored, the rest of the time was theirs to do with as they pleased. For a ship as in demand as the USS Enterprise, that was a _very_ rare treat indeed.

The crew responded in a range of ways, most of them thoroughly normal, bordering on slightly mundane. Sulu put the ship in park (but with the inertial dampener disengaged), polished and sharpened all of his swords, then turned his attention to his beloved plants. Uhura—ever the student in the senior crew—devoted most of her stand-down hours to finally learning Talax'anari, a daunting task at the best of times, since the language wasn't spoken, but sung. The Captain caught up on his paperwork, re-read a few of his favourite books, stopped in to check on Scotty from time to time, occasionally bothered Uhura until she told him to leave her in peace (presumably in Talax'anari), but very wisely stayed away from the survey lab on Deck Six.

********************

Lieutenant McDonald had a better idea.

Swords, botany, books and linguistics weren't quite interesting enough for her. Like most other officers of her age and rank, she was only a few years through the Academy's doors, so young and relatively green, but smart and always raring to go. The Enterprise was a bustling place, even during the calmer hours, so she wasn't used to having a lot of uninterrupted time on her hands. She was just as glad as the next person that they weren't being shot at for a change, but complete peace and quiet was something she could really only tolerate for a couple of days at a time.

She volunteered to help Mister Scott with the engine upgrade work, but it wasn't her area of expertise, so he told her she was as much use to him as a chocolate kettle and sent her merrily on her way. After stripping and rebuilding the transporter control boards from scratch for the fourth time, she decided to go for a stroll. She wandered through the ship for hours with her trusty PADD and tricorder in hand, mapping out how various engineering components linked together to provide the services the crew required. She deliberately avoided the major corridors and the lifts, relying instead on the convoluted network of lesser-known maintenance ladders and tubes.

On the third day of her informal tour, she found a particularly unusual space; a perfectly round, seventy-eight metre long tunnel that sloped from Deck Ten to Deck Twelve at an angle of thirty-four degrees. It was next to one of the ship's secondary water processing units, so she made a mental note to find out if it perhaps served some kind of spill control or overflow function. It was just over a metre high, so not tall enough to stand up in, but certainly tall enough to crawl in.

Or sit down in.

Hmm.

It was next to a giant water tank, and came out a metre and a half above the floor, in one of those awkward, angular maintenance spaces only a few of the engineers ever used. Engineers who were either busy with the engine upgrade work, or twiddling their thumbs in boredom just as much as her.

And so it was that the USS Enterprise, the jewel in the Federation's naval crown, the ship people literally begged to be assigned to, acquired its first ever aquatic slide.

By the end of that initial day, McDonald had recruited five other people into her cunning plan. They lined the inside of the tunnel with a set of lightweight, durable, frictionless plastic sheets, temporarily 'borrowed' from the ship's stores. The trickiest part was figuring out how to tap into the water supply without causing a major leak or triggering the usage alarms in Engineering. The former issue was easily addressed. They were Starfleet engineers, after all, and some of the best in the fleet at that. They bypassed the moisture and usage sensors as much as they could, but they were using so little of the stuff, it wouldn't pose that much of a threat unless everyone else on the ship decided to go for a shower at the same time. Ensign Lui solved the problem of what to do at the other end. She 'borrowed' a portable water tank, and hey presto, they had a reasonably adequate splashdown pool. It was only eighty centimetres deep, which McDonald worried wouldn't be quite deep enough, but it was the best solution they could find without a serious raid on Scotty's stores, so it would simply have to do. Then they figured out how to drain and recycle the water in a continuous loop, so they would never run out of input at the top or overload the pool at the bottom.

There were ten of them at the launch ceremony, which they marked with the pressing of a jury-rigged button and an enthusiastic round of applause. The water started to flow, and _then_ the real fun began.

Slowly and surely, they brought in a dozen or so other people, but only friends and colleagues they knew they could really trust. Contrary to what her actions might lead others to believe, Lieutenant McDonald wasn't daft. She knew only too well that if news of the slide's existence spread to officers further up the chain, they would all be drowning in a ton of trouble, pardon the terrible pun.

********************

It was Doctor McCoy who eventually sniffed her tomfoolery out.

He'd spent most of his stand-down hours so far catching up on his medical journals, filling out what seemed to be an entire galaxy's worth of forms, reorganizing the contents of his liquor cabinet (maintained purely for medicinal reasons), and enjoying the fact that for once, nobody was falling into his office bleeding out of their ears, with their shirt mysteriously torn in two.

Then the injuries started to show up. Unusual injuries he wouldn't normally expect to see when the ship was hanging around in space doing a whole, whopping lot of bugger all. Minor concussions, bruised elbows, sprained ankles and swollen knees. And for some reason, the wounded were always slightly damp, as if they had fallen over and hurt themselves while taking a particularly violent bath.

Then he examined the list of names, and realized it was all junior officers and crew, mostly from operations and engineering. That was more than enough to trigger some internal alarms. He'd long since learned the hard way that when junior engineers and techs showed up in sickbay in significant numbers, and there hadn't been a dreadful accident in the lower hull, it meant that in some deserted section of the ship, Something Naughty Was Going On.

Not that this really came as much of a shock. Starfleet recruited the best and brightest the Federation's member planets had to offer. The people in question were all too young, too smart, too restless and too inventive to cope with long periods of complete relaxation. He knew that when you put them on stand-down hours for more than a week without giving them something amusing to do, it was only a matter of time before one of them blew something up, or set a part of the ship on fire.

Starfleet's official motto might be 'Ad Astra Per Aspera', but he was fairly sure the motto for the engineers should be 'Hold My Beer And Watch This'. Since injuries created paperwork, and he hated paperwork with every fibre of his being, he decided it was time to take a stroll and find out what the hell was going on.

********************

It took him a day to hunt the source of the injuries down, and even then, he discovered it completely by chance. He spotted a set of wet footprints in a rarely-visited section of Deck Ten, which he thought rather odd, since it was nowhere near the Rec Deck with the ship's twenty-five metre pool.

The footprints led him to a set of doors. As he stepped within range of the motion sensors, the doors slid open, revealing a crowd of young men and women gathered around a hole in the wall. And for some reason, all of them were dressed for a day at the beach. Stand-down hours were supposed to be laid back and relaxed, but surely this was taking the piss?

Nobody had noticed his arrival, so he watched in amusement as Petty Officer Gogoladze swung back and forth a few times on a grab bar affixed to the wall, then launched herself enthusiastically into the hole, yee-hawing eagerly as she went.

"Would anyone care to explain just what in the _hell_ is going on here?" he bellowed, instantly revealing his presence to the gathered crowd.

Two dozen heads turned towards him. Nobody said a word.

"And you're normally such a chatty bunch," he said, folding his arms tightly across his chest. "What's the matter now? Y'all get hit by lightning and lose the power of speech?"

There was a flurry of movement at the back, and Lieutenant McDonald stepped out from the crowd. Her long brown hair was tied up in a practical bun, and she was wearing an extremely revealing item of clothing that he could only assume was a bathing suit in her native land. Which surprised him, since the one-time Democratic Republic of Scotland wasn't exactly known for its abundance of sunny weather. He cleared his throat and fixed the young woman with his sternest frown, making a very specific point of looking only at her eyes.

"Just a wee bit of fun, Doctor McCoy," she explained, gesturing to the hole in the wall, inviting him to check it out.

He stepped up, peered in and tried not to grin like the Cheshire Cat as everything became clear. The idiots had built a goddamn water slide. In the middle of a goddamn Federation starship.

He turned back to the now taciturn crowd. A few of them looked quite defiant, but most of them simply stared at their feet, suspecting it was only a matter of time before Doctor McCoy reported his findings to Mister Scott, or even worse, to Captain Kirk. He frowned again, then heaved an overly dramatic sigh, trying to look and sound as mean as he could. He knew he had a reputation (well-earned or otherwise) for being a bad-tempered son of a bitch, so needless to say, he didn't have to try very hard. A few seconds of his famous Disapproving Stare, and one of the flight deck officers at the back looked as if he was going to cry.

"Contrary to what you may have been led to believe by some of the other folks on this ship, I actually don't disapprove of people having fun," he told them.

McDonald narrowed her eyes, suddenly suspicious of where he was going.

"However, as your CMO, it's my legal, professional and moral duty to make sure everyone has fun in a safe, responsible and injury-free manner," he added in a solemn tone.

Shoulders straightened and faces brightened.

"You're not going to report us?" Ensign Akinahew asked, obviously trying not to grin.

"No, Ensign, I'm not going to report you," he confirmed. Then he raised an admonishing finger. "But I _am_ going to enforce some rules. And you're going to follow them, to the absolute letter. Is that clear?"

Heads bobbed in silent consent.

"Rule number one," he announced. "Too many of you are coming into my sickbay with all manner of bumps and bruises, so you need more padding around the inside of the tunnel."

Petty Officer Herrera-Prieto bashfully raised her hand. "I can install another layer of the plastic sheeting," she told him. "That should help."

He gave her an approving smile. "Rule number two," he continued. "As fond as I am of the stuff myself, absolutely _no_ alcohol anywhere near the slide."

A quiet rumble of disapproval ran through the back of the crowd. McCoy grunted and swore under his breath. What the hell was it with engineers and hooch? Was there a box on the cliché list this bunch of morons didn't tick?

"Alcohol and water slides do not mix, people," he thundered at them. "Trust me on this one. You do _not_ want to slide down this tunnel and land face first in a pool full of another person's beer-scented vomit."

This time, it was Crewman Abdelrahman who spoke up. "No alcohol, doc, you got it."

McCoy turned to address McDonald again. "I assume you have some kind of splash pool down at the other end?" he asked her.

The engineer nodded.

"How deep is it?"

"Eighty centimetres," she replied, with a look that said she knew it needed to be even deeper.

"Not good enough," he complained, vigorously shaking his head.

Behind him, Ensign Molomo heaved a disconsolate sigh. "That's as deep as we could make it with the equipment available," she explained forlornly.

"Then you need to rig up something better," he warned her. "Some kind of catch net instead of or as well as a pool. I've seen more knee and ankle injuries in the last few days than I usually see in a year. You're going in too hard and too fast. It needs to be much softer and slower."

McDonald snickered.

"Get your mind out of the gutter, Lieutenant," he snapped. Jesus. They were almost as bad with the sexual innuendo as they were with the booze and the stunts. Between the hare-brained experiments, the sex and the drinking, it was sometimes a wonder the Enterprise even moved. Although, considering that he'd once caught Christine and Geoff playing beer pong on his favourite diagnostic table, it wasn't as if his own department was any better.

McDonald turned to one of her partners in crime. "What if we install a gravity trap of some kind at the bottom of the tunnel?" she suggested to the other man. "Would that work?"

McCoy frowned. "What on God's green earth is a gravity trap when it's at home?"

Petty Officer Rosenberg provided the explanation. "We tinker with the artificial gravity settings in the room at the end of the slide, so when you exit the tunnel, you hit the water at a half gee instead of a full gee. Would give you a much softer and easier landing."

"Wouldn't that draw a lot of power?" Leonard enquired. "Or at least enough to make someone down in Engineering sit up and take note?"

McDonald tilted her hand back and forth in a no-yes-no gesture. "Depends," she said. "If we only switch the trap on when people are actually here, instead of all the time, it shouldn't be too bad."

"I guess that means we can't go any lower than a half gee?" he asked, thinking that a quarter would be even better.

She shook her head. "That would _definitely_ show up on Scotty's board," she warned. "And it would also make the water in the pool a bit harder to manage."

Hmm. He hadn't thought of that. But he was a doctor, dammit, not a pool boy.

He gave McDonald an approving nod. "I'll leave you to figure out the particulars, Lieutenant. But however you do it, I don't want to see another busted ankle or knee. I have enough damn paperwork to deal with it as it is. You generate any more for me, and I'll make sure all of you pesky kids get the Georgia Special at your next physical. And that _doesn't_ mean I give you some bourbon and a peach when I'm done. Understood?"

"Understood," McDonald said, looking around the room to make sure none of her colleagues disagreed. "No more sickbay visits from us, you help us to keep this quiet, we dismantle everything and go back to regular duties as soon as the survey mission's done. Deal?" she proposed, holding out her right hand.

Leonard paused for a moment, wondering if he was about to do something he would come to regret, then reached out, grasped the extended hand and gave it a firm shake.

"Deal."

********************

Two days later, he went back for another look. There had been no more injuries limping into his office, disrupting his games of solitaire and his afternoon naps, but he'd heard something at a meeting with the senior crew that he thought he should pass along.

Lieutenant McDonald was there again. Hardly surprising, since she seemed to be the one in charge.

"Doctor," she said, with a nod of greeting.

"Lieutenant," he politely replied, trying to ignore the fact she was still wearing that damn ridiculous piece of cloth.

"Something we can do for you?" she asked, then hastily added, "not that we don't enjoy having such illustrious company, of course."

He snorted quietly, but only said, "Just wanted to let you know I was at a meeting with Mister Scott today."

"Oh, aye, and what did he have to say?"

"He's wondering why all of the engineers and techs who aren't helping out on the warp engine upgrades are suddenly nowhere to be found."

McDonald frowned. "Well, we're all completing our scheduled tasks before we come here, so he can't be worried about the work."

"It's not that," Leonard explained, shaking his head. "I get the feeling he's twigged on to the fact that you've all found something much more interesting to do with your stand-down hours."

"Which means he might get nosy, and come looking for what that something is," she concluded.

"Was just thinking that if you really want to keep this a secret, and trust me, you absolutely do, you should probably come up with some good cover stories," he said. "And maybe post a couple of guards."

She glanced around at her companions, nodding again. "We'll have a wee chat, put something convincing in place."

The purpose of his visit complete, the doctor headed for the door.

"Doctor McCoy?" McDonald called out after him.

He paused and turned back. "Yes, Lieutenant?"

Her mischievous grin should have warned him what was coming next. "Sure you don't want to give it a go?" she asked, gesturing at the slide.

McCoy snorted. "Young lady, I am the Chief Medical Officer," he said in a deliberately pompous voice.

"Yeah, _so_?" was her stoutly disrespectful response.

He clasped his hands behind his back and bounced slightly on his toes. "So it would be unbecoming for a senior member of the crew to publicly indulge in such frivolous and improper behaviour."

McDonald tutted and rolled her eyes. "Christ almighty," she muttered. "When you talk like that, you sound like Mister Spock."

He tutted back. "There's no need for insults, Lieutenant."

"Ah, well," she said with a despondent sigh. "Guess I was wrong."

"About what?"

"About you."

"The hell do you mean, about _me_?" he demanded, feeling slightly under attack.

"You remember that time we all went drinking at Smorgasbord?" she asked, referring to an evening out a few months ago his liver didn't want to repeat.

"Yeah?"

"You didn't strike me then as the kind of guy who would pull rank to avoid a challenge or a bit of fun," she added, shrugging very slightly.

He puffed out a sigh of his own, very much aware of the fact that she was daring him to have a go in front of a room full of junior crew. He could stick to his original defense and walk away with his dignity safely intact, or he could take a single shot of the slide and put the insolent Lieutenant very firmly in her place. Her motto might be 'Hold My Beer And Watch This', but his was 'Do No Harm, But Take No Shit', and he didn't take it from anybody, _especially_ an engineer.

"Young lady, I am a doctor," he reminded her stiffly. "Which means I only pull rank when lives are on the line. So I'll take a shot at your damn slide. Just once though, you hear?"

McDonald nodded, grinning like a jackass eating a cactus. "If you do it right, doctor, once is all you need," was her rather suggestive reply.

He grunted softly and rolled his eyes, but declined to grace her comment with a response.

"I'll see you back here at eighteen hundred," he told her as he turned to leave.

"I'll be here," she replied. "Oh, and doc?"

"What?"

"Make sure you wear a nice pair of shorts."

********************

He returned at the end of the day, barefoot, wearing a pair of swim shorts under a set of casual sweats, to find the very imposing figure of Ensign Gaudet standing in front of the door.

Gaudet frowned as Leonard approached. "I'm sorry, Doctor McCoy," he said in a stern and serious voice. "The engineering crew is reconfiguring the recreational coolant control system, so this corridor is currently off limits to the rest of the crew."

McCoy harumphed and waved the man away. "Stand aside, Ensign," he said, his voice quiet but firm. "I know damn well what's going on behind that door, and it sure as hell ain't any reconfiguration work."

Gaudet straightened and stood his ground. He wasn't part of McDonald's original group, and obviously hadn't been told the doctor was in on the game.

"I'm sorry, Doctor," he repeated. "This corridor is off limits for safety reasons, and I can't allow you to proceed."

Leonard huffed and took a deep breath, ready to tell the well-intentioned but misinformed Ensign that he needed to get the hell out of his way. The door behind Gaudet slid open, revealing the damp and slightly dripping form of the one and only Lieutenant McDonald.

To his amazement and surprise, she was wearing another, even flimsier suit. Sweet baby Jesus on a broken rocking horse from hell. Talk about leaving nothing to the imagination? And why the hell did she even _have_ a second suit? How much swimming could one officer on a starship do? All of a sudden, he hoped the water running along the slide was very, _very_ cold.

McDonald grinned. "Thought I heard someone making a kerfuffle out here," she said. "Figured it might be you." She patted Gaudet on the arm, letting him know he could step aside. "It's okay, Bart, the doc's one of us."

Gaudet instantly relaxed and flashed an apologetic smile. "Sorry about that, sir. Can't be too careful, yeah?"

McCoy tutted. "Ensign, if you were all so worried about being careful, you wouldn't be doing something so goddamn stupid in the first place," he pointed out.

"Says the man who's here to do the stupid thing himself," McDonald murmured as she turned to head back to the slide.

"McDonald, you give me any more of that smart mouth of yours, I'm gonna stitch it shut for you at your next physical," he warned as he followed her through the door. "And I promise I _won't_ use any anaesthetic."

There was a much larger gathering this time, maybe as many as thirty-five instead of the previous twenty to twenty-four. Most of the faces were the same, but a few of them were completely new, and regarded the appearance of the CMO with a mixture of alarm and fear.

"Relax, people," he drawled, trying to put the crowd at ease. "I'm just here to give the facilities a hands-on safety inspection."

He watched in horror and amusement as one, two, three, four then five members of the group launched themselves into the tunnel in a variety of configurations. Petty Officer Ghostkeeper and Ensign Sakamoto both chose the safest and most traditional pose, sitting or lying flat on their backs. Crewman Farnese stepped up the game, taking a slight running start, then throwing herself head first into the tube with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. McCoy winced. It might be thrilling on the way down, but it probably wouldn't be quite so thrilling at the other end. Ensign Stefanicki went one better again, going in head first just like Farnese, but lying flat on his back. As he lifted his legs to push away, he gave his colleagues a grin and a cheerful wave. And then, just when Leonard thought the stupidity had reached its peak, Lieutenant Elonat decided it could do even better. It took the slide feet first, but on its stomach, also giving them a wave as it launched. McCoy was only relieved that Elonat's people didn't have toes, so it wasn't going to lose a toenail to a seam on the way down.

"Right," he announced to nobody in particular. "Let's get this horseshit over with."

He pulled his t-shirt over his head and dropped it onto the floor. Then, before either dignity or common sense could kick in, he stripped his sweat pants down to his ankles and kicked them out from under his feet.

From somewhere behind him, McDonald made an admiring sound.

"Nice tattoo, Doc," she told him. "Wouldn't have thought you were the type for ink."

Not for the first time, he made a mental note to add some 'vitamins' to the Scotswoman's diet, the kind that would give her uncontrollable gas for a week. See how talkative she felt when she couldn't even take a breath without emitting a riotously toxic fart.

"Lieutenant, when I lecture all of you bright, young, pretty things on the dangers of making very serious decisions while flat-out drunk, you should know I'm talking from experience."

McDonald grinned. "Doc, if that tramp stamp's the worst decision you've ever made while flat-out drunk, then you're not even trying," she told him, then added, "It's actually quite pretty you know. And very tastefully done. Not even _remotely_ slutty."

"Why, thank you, Lieutenant," was his gentlemanly reply. "But you say one more word about my ink, and I'll be making a note of your opinion in your autopsy file. You hear?"

She grinned again, threw him a jaunty salute, then leaned back against the wall and waved him towards the slide.

"Have you decided how you want to go in?" she asked, with a look on her face as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. But if she was trying to provoke an outraged response, she was poking the wrong guy. She wasn't the only one who could play that particular game, and he'd been playing it much, _much_ longer than her.

He gave her a filthy grin of his own. "How I always like to go in, Lieutenant," he replied. "On my back, at a safe but decent speed, with a good roll of my hips to get me going."

He stepped up, grabbed the bar above the tunnel, swung once, twice, three times, then launched himself as hard and as fast as he could. He rocketed down the tunnel at a speed he wouldn't have thought he could achieve, given the relatively harmless grade of the slope, wincing slightly as his butt bumped over the padded seams. A handful of seconds later, he shot out of the end of the tube, whoo-hooing at the top of his lungs, hit the edge of the gravity trap, came to an almost total halt and plopped into the receiving pool with a gentle but impressive splash.

He surfaced quickly, spluttered loudly and shook the water out of his hair, grinning madly from ear to ear. The five previous sliders were all gathered around the edge of the tank. They froze for a few moments, not quite sure how to respond to the sight of a Department Head wearing nothing but a pair of shorts (in fetching Medical Blue), then started to applaud and cheer.

"One is saluting enthusiasm, honoured McCoy," Elonat told him with a gracious bow. "But one is recommending improvement to artistic technique?"

"Yes, honoured Lieutenant, one absolutely is," McCoy replied, knowing fine well he'd landed in the splashdown pool about as gracefully as a bag of stones. Mother of God, but that was _fun_.

He clambered out of the tank, shook off the remaining water, pulled his shorts back into place and turned to the gathered crowd.

"I only have one question," he said.

Elonat made another bow. "One is graciously assisting."

The doctor grinned again. "How do I get back up to the top?"

********************

And so it continued for the next seven days. Some cardio to get him going, then breakfast in the mess with Jim. An hour or two of paperwork and records review, with a break for his morning nap. A sociable, leisurely lunch, sometimes with Jim and Uhura, sometimes with Christine and Geoff. A patient or two, the odd exam, the occasional diagnostic test.

End of shift, a change of clothes and then it was time to hit the slide. He normally stayed for an hour at the most, until hunger or cold told him it was time to leave, but that was enough for six or seven turns.

It was like sex—the more he tried it, the bolder and more inventive he got. Head first. Feet first. On his back. On his stomach. Sitting up. Lying down. On his own. Sandwiched between two lovely women. With four other people at the same time.

Thanks to McDonald's organization, everything ran very smoothly, and surprisingly, even after several days, it was still a secret from the senior crew. Out of all of them, only McCoy was in on the game, a badge he wore with no small amount of pride. He caught himself winking at other people who were part of the gang, and grinning inanely at random moments throughout the day.

This, of course, made everyone extremely suspicious, especially Captain Kirk.

"What's _wrong_ with you?" Jim asked one morning over a breakfast of coffee, fruit and toast.

"What do you mean?"

"You're so cheerful all the time," Kirk told him with a puzzled frown.

McCoy gave him an equally puzzled frown right back. "Would you rather I was depressed and angry all the time instead?"

"Well, no, of course not," the Captain conceded. "But it's just... _wrong_."

********************

It was the test restart of the engine systems that eventually did them in. Not a dangerous procedure as such, but as any half-trained engineer with warp engine knowledge knew, it sometimes triggered a tiny, momentary surge to every circuit on the ship. Unfortunately, all of the engineers who knew one end of a warp engine from the other were too busy assisting Mister Scott to be anywhere near the slide. Doubly unfortunately, the jury-rigged circuits which kept the water flowing, the circulation system running and the gravity trap at the bottom in place were not shielded against power surges to the same level as the rest of the ship.

And so it was that when Mister Scott punched in the code to bring his babies back to life, all hell started to break loose. The gravity trap was the first to go, failing completely just as a five person chain of people sailed out of the bottom of the slide. The end result was a broken toe, a busted ankle, a wrenched knee, a chipped tooth and a _very_ nasty bump on the head. Since the wounded knew he was in on the act, Doctor McCoy was quickly and secretly called to the scene. Needless to say, he wasn't at _all_ impressed by the sudden, downward turn of events.

"What the hell happened to the gravity trap?" he demanded to know, as he ran his diagnostic scanner over Ensign Johannsen's rapidly swelling knee. Then he frowned and looked around the room. "And why the hell is there so much goddamn water on the floor? How much of a splash can five people make? Did some moron switch the circulation system off?"

Oh, _shit_. In all of the fuss to deal with the injured sliders, nobody had yet picked up on the fact that the water wasn't draining away. And to make matters even worse, it seemed to be flowing down from the top at a much higher than normal rate.

Ensign Molomo turned away from a panel on the wall, a look of horror on her face. "The circulation pump's completely failed, and the flow control circuit's overloaded," she explained.

McCoy could see she was seconds away from losing her cool. It was time for the doctor to step outside, and for the Lieutenant Commander to momentarily take his place.

"Concentrate on finding a way to shut down the water flow," he told her, keeping his body language calm and composed. "Don't worry about the mess or the damage. We can deal with that later once the main problem's solved."

As he turned to examine Crewman Siddiqui, he realized the water was sloshing over the top of his feet. Thank the Lord for waterproof shoes.

Molomo flinched as the door to the room slid open again, but it was only Lieutenant McDonald, come to find out what the hell was going on. She was wearing her regulation boots and dress, so she obviously hadn't been up at the top of the tunnel, waiting patiently to use the slide.

"We need to shut this down," she said to McCoy.

" _You_ need to shut this down, Lieutenant," the doctor grouchily replied. " _I_ need to get these people to sickbay."

She gave him a curt but amenable nod. "Okay. You deal with the broken people, I'll deal with the broken equipment."

That was the plan, at least. And it would almost certainly have worked, had the universe not decided to beat them perfectly to the punch. No sooner were the words out of her mouth than there was a muffled bang and a puff of smoke from a panel on the lower wall. The overhead lights flickered, turned to emergency red for a couple of seconds, then came back on, but at a slightly lower than normal level. On a nearby diagnostic panel, an alarm suddenly started to ping. An alarm that would also be pinging on the wall of Mister Scott's office, all the way down in Engineering.

McDonald's shoulders slumped. "Aww, fuck," she muttered. Then she turned to Magnusdottir and Molomo. "Help anyone who can't walk," she told them, pointing at their injured friends, "and get the hell out. Let me deal with this."

"What about the people up at the top of the slide?" McCoy asked as he carried a wincing Johannsen towards the door.

McDonald shook her head. "Been up there already, told everyone to pick up the evidence and scram," she explained. "But you should see the water output. It's like Niagara bloody Falls."

Just as she finished speaking, the volume of water pouring out of the tunnel increased. Unfortunately, so did the intensity of the pinging alarm. Oh, dear. The shit was really hitting the fan now. They had five, maybe seven minutes before the Chief Engineer arrived.

"Scotty's gonna rip you a new one," the doctor warned.

"Won't be the first time," McDonald admitted as she splashed through the water to pull a panel out of the wall. "And I have holos of him at the engineering Christmas party wearing nothing but a Santa hat and a tiny pair of tartan pants. I'm sure I'll be fine."

McCoy grimaced. Now _there_ was an image he didn't need. "You sure you don't want me to hang around?" he asked.

She gave him another nod. "I started this whole thing, so it's only right I finish it as well," she said. "Now do us both a favour, and make yourself scarce."

He nodded back, then did exactly as he was told.

********************

Four days later, the disciplinary axe fell. By then, the anomaly survey work was done, and every member of the crew who'd known about and used the slide had quietly come forward to admit to their guilt. Most of them had probably thought about keeping quiet, until word got around that Lieutenant McDonald was facing an official review, but refusing to name any names. That changed everything. Starfleet wasn't in the habit of hiring irresponsible cowards, and even if one or two occasionally slipped through the net, they didn't end up being assigned to the best starship in the fleet.

As per standard procedure, McCoy admitted his involvement and guilt directly to his CO. Who, unfortunately, also happened to be both the Captain and his closest friend.

"You _knew_ about this?" Kirk asked in an incredulous tone.

"Knew about it, helped to hide it, slid down it until I damn near wore another hole in my ass," McCoy responded with a satisfied grin.

"Bones, do you have _any_ idea how angry I am with you right now?"

McCoy cocked an astonished brow. "Jesus, Jim. It was just a water slide," he pointed out. "I know we broke some equipment and made a bit of a mess, but everything's been cleaned up and repaired."

"No, not about _that_ ," Kirk said tetchily, scrunching his face and flapping a dismissive hand.

"Then what?"

"About the fact you never told me what was going on!" the Captain exclaimed. "What kind of best friend are you?"

"The kind of best friend who doesn't rat out a bunch of kids just for having a bit of fun," McCoy said in his defense. "And you of all people should be thankful I know how to keep my mouth shut, after what you did in Belize."

"I didn't want you to rat out anyone, Bones," Kirk said with a stoic sigh. "I just wanted you to tell me about the slide."

Both of the doctor's expressive eyebrows shot up towards his hair. "So you're telling me you're angry, not because we broke some equipment and a bunch of rules, but because you didn't get to use the slide?"

"Yes! One shot, Bones. That's all I wanted. Even if I had to do it in the middle of the goddamn night," Kirk complained. Then he wrinkled his nose. "And you told me you didn't remember what I did in Belize."

McCoy shrugged slightly. "Guess I lied."

"Should throw your ass in the brig," Kirk muttered, but with humour glinting in his eyes.

"You do that, Jimbo," was McCoy's audacious response. "At least I'll get some peace and quiet, and I hear the beds are _real_ nice."

********************

Unlike what Scotty had apparently threatened to do to McDonald when he discovered what she had done, the official review was painless, quick and clean. They gathered at 0900 in one of the more spacious rooms, just over forty of them in total, mostly in engineering red, with an occasional dash of gold or blue. As expected, the Captain supervised the proceedings, with assistance from a couple of yeomen, Uhura, Scotty and Mister Spock.

Kirk chimed his hammer against the bell. "This disciplinary review is now in session," he announced. "Mister Spock, please summarize the violations for the official record."

All in all, there were quite a few, more than any of them would have guessed, so it took Spock almost a minute to work his way through the list.

"I'd prefer to keep these proceedings to a minimum," the Captain explained once the summary was done. "We've all read Mister Scott's damage report, and Lieutenant McDonald's deposition. I don't think there's anything to be gained by going through either document again in more detail. So if nobody objects, let's get straight to the point. Would everyone involved in this incident please stand."

Forty-odd men and women shuffled quietly to their feet. McCoy, who until this point had been lounging at the side of the room, looking like a curious guest, pushed himself up out of his seat and took his place at the front of the group, shoulder-to-shoulder with the Lieutenant.

Spock's right eyebrow shot up so far and so fast it practically launched itself off his head and into geosynchronous orbit around the ship. Uhura covered her mouth with her hand, obviously trying not to laugh, lest she injure the solemnity of the formal review.

Scotty was _not_ amused. "Leonard, tell me you weren't involved in this nonsense from the start?" he asked, obviously aghast at the thought.

McCoy shook his head. "Course not," he said defiantly, then frowned and added, "must have been two, maybe three days in?"

"You're telling me you knew about this for over a week?" the Chief Engineer almost squawked. "And you didn't think to come and tell me what these numpties were doing to my beautiful ship?"

McDonald tutted and rolled her eyes.

"Don't be such a goddamn drama queen," the doctor retorted, voicing the young woman's thoughts. "It's not like we caused a warp core failure or blew up a tank of radioactive coolant. We just had to dry out a couple of minor circuits."

"Aye, well, don't come crying to me the next time your fancy diagnostic scanner goes on the bloody blink," Scotty muttered.

"And don't come crying to me the next time you morons have a department-wide outbreak of Martian Crotch Rot!" McCoy shot back.

Around the room, several people quietly winced. Yeoman Lim coughed delicately and crossed her legs.

"Gentlemen, please," the Captain wearily interjected. "This is an official Starfleet review. There's no need for anyone to lose their temper."

Scotty sniffed, folded his arms tightly across his chest and speared the unrepentant medic with a thoroughly malevolent glare.

Mister Spock immediately stepped up to the plate. "Doctor McCoy, you understand that by admitting to being involved in this incident, you must accept responsibility for the improper conduct of all other parties? You are senior to Lieutenant McDonald, in both rank and in years of service. The onus was therefore on you to put a stop to the illegitimate behaviour. Or if I may use the appropriate human parlance, the buck stops with you."

McCoy gave an indifferent shrug. "Not like Starfleet's gonna fire me, is it?"

Spock's brow shot up again. "That is highly improbable, doctor, although not completely outwith the realm of possible responses."

"So sue me if I don't seem in the mood to fall on my sword."

The room fell silent again.

"Very well," the Captain concluded with a nod. "All of you will have a demerit added to your official record, to be cleared after a period of one year," he announced. "Because some sensitive equipment was damaged, I am allowed to impose a harsher punishment. However, I've decided to be lenient, partly because there was no permanent harm done, but mostly because everyone involved voluntarily came forward to admit their guilt. If you'd all kept quiet and forced me to come looking for you, I'd be feeling far less generous right now," he explained with a small smile. "I am also placing Doctor McCoy and Lieutenant McDonald on administrative suspension for a period of fifteen days, during which time they'll be confined to quarters outside of working hours."

He cast his eyes over the assembled crowd. "Would anyone like to say anything?" he asked. "Point the finger? Apologize? Cry?" The corner of his mouth twitched. "Throw themselves at my feet and beg for mercy?"

Nobody so much as coughed. Hardly surprising, really, given how lightly they were getting off.

Kirk turned his attention to McDonald. "And what about you, Lieutenant? You were the instigator of this affair. Any regrets?" he calmly enquired.

"Of course, sir," was her unusually cheerful response.

"Oh?"

"Not putting in a proper surge regulator circuit, sir," she explained, no less enthusiastically.

Kirk emitted a quiet sigh and reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "That's… not really what I had in mind, Lieutenant."

"Sorry, sir. Was just being honest."

"Yes, well, perhaps next time, you should either say nothing at all, or tell a little white lie instead."

McDonald pulled a delicate frown. "Is that the decision-making process you followed when you wrote your report about Nibiru, sir?" she innocently enquired.

McCoy let out a raucous snort. She had Jim over a barrel there.

The Captain narrowed his eyes at the insolent young woman, then turned to his second-in-command. "Mister Spock, why don't we make that _thirty_ days of administrative suspension instead?"

Leonard's face instantly fell. "Not for _both_ of us?" he asked, astonished.

Kirk flashed his oldest friend a gracious but reproving smile. "Yes, Bones. For both of you."

McDonald opened her mouth to protest on McCoy's behalf, but the doctor quickly shut her down.

"You hush now," he muttered at the engineer. "Before he changes his mind again and exiles us to Rura Penthe instead."

"Don't be bloody daft, man," she furtively whispered back. "That's in Klingon space, so he cannae send us there. He'd pack us off to that god-awful place in New Zealand instead."

Kirk wielded his hammer again. "This review is now closed," he declared. "Dismissed."

********************

The water slide on Deck Ten soon passed into the realm of myth.

Knowing it would only be a matter of time before some idiot had another go, Scotty isolated the water supply and fastened a durable plastic grille over both ends of the tube.

The Captain hummed and hawed for several days before sending in his formal report. Not because he was loathe to reveal improper behaviour by his crew, but because he wasn't entirely sure the brass would even believe what he had to say. But send it in he eventually did, and sure enough, as he'd feared, the story wasn't well received.

"Captain Kirk, are you pulling my leg?" Admiral Morrow angrily demanded to know during their next weekly call.

"No, sir."

"You're _serious_ about this?"

"Completely, sir."

"God damn it, Kirk, what the hell is wrong with you people?" the Admiral almost roared.

"Sir?"

"Captain, do you know what happened when the commander of the USS Komarov put his crew on stand-down hours for a week last month?"

"No, Admiral, I'm afraid I don't," the Captain calmly confessed. "But I have the strange feeling you're about to tell me."

"A ship-wide chess tournament," Morrow revealed. " _That's_ what happened."

"Hmm," was all Kirk could bring himself to say.

The Admiral's glower deepened. "And what about the crew of the USS Apakura?" he continued. "Do you know what _they_ decided to do with their four days of stand-down hours?"

The Captain emitted a gentle but impatient sigh. "No, sir, I don't. But again, please enlighten me."

"They cooked."

" _Cooked_?" Kirk repeated in a dubious tone.

"That's right, Captain. They cooked. Organized a whole bunch of demonstration classes, taught everything from how to brew Romulan Ale to the effects of zero gee on filo pastry. I have it on very good authority that one ensign from engineering made a truly stupendous cheese soufflé."

"I'm… sure that was very interesting, sir."

"But, no," the Admiral announced, more theatrically than the moment deserved. "Chess and cooking aren't good enough for the crew of the Enterprise. You bunch of crazy bastards have to build a goddamn water slide instead!"

Kirk attempted a diplomatic smile. "Well, you did give me the best crew in the fleet, sir," he reminded his fuming boss. "Chess and cooking obviously aren't enough to keep them busy."

"So it seems," Morrow reluctantly conceded.

"Was there anything else you wanted to discuss today, sir?" Kirk asked tactfully. "Perhaps you'd like to review this month's round of transfer requests, or the efficiency scores on our latest set of emergency procedure drills?"

The Admiral scowled. "No, Captain, I would not."

"Very well, sir," Kirk replied with a respectful nod. "Then if you don't mind, I'll sign off now."

"You do that. And no more goddamn water slides. You hear?"

"Loud and clear, sir. Kirk out."

********************

"Man's a fucking idiot," McCoy informed the Captain later, when the latter stopped in at the doctor's quarters for a catch-up chat and a drink.

"He's an Admiral, Bones," Kirk replied, as if this explained all possible sins.

McCoy snorted and took a delicate sip of his Scotch. "Doesn't mean he's not a fucking idiot."

"Why'd they make him an Admiral if he's a fucking idiot?"

"How the hell I should I know?" McCoy protested. "You're the one in the pretty gold shirt, so you should understand much better than me how all of that horseshit works. Maybe he married the boss's daughter. Maybe he married the boss's _son_. Maybe they had to promote someone, and he was the _least_ idiotic person in a room full of complete fucking idiots. Or maybe he has holos of President Singh shoving a tribble up her butt."

Kirk chuckled and swirled his drink. "Now wouldn't that be something?"

"Used to see it all the damn time when I did my emergency room rotation, you know."

"What, people shoving tribbles up their butts?"

"Tribbles, sex toys, carrots, flashlights, salt shakers, beer bottles, cutlery, keys," McCoy explained, shaking his head in exasperation. "You name it, I've seen it. One time, I even had a guy come in with a live eel sticking out of his behind. Seriously, Jim. I'm as tolerant and open-minded as the next guy, but who in their right mind puts a live eel up their ass?"

"Wouldn't that hurt?" the Captain asked, wincing slightly and clenching his cheeks.

"The stupid thing bit me when I took it out, so I damn well hope so."

"Speaking of creatures who bite," the Captain continued with a teasing grin. "How _is_ Lieutenant McDonald?"

Another facetious snort. "No clue," the doctor replied. "Scotty's put her on delta shift, so haven't had a chance to speak to her since you sent us down." Then he frowned. "Why do you ask?"

"I noticed that the two of you seem to have become quite good friends," Kirk explained. "Just wondered if there was something more going on there I should know about."

"As if I'd tell you even if there was," McCoy retorted. "Uhura doesn't call you Captain Intercom for nothing, you know."

Kirk gave a nonchalant shrug. "Wouldn't be the worst thing she's ever called me."

"Yeah, what was that phrase she used again?"

"Don't remember the exact words. Something about a pox-ridden horsefucker, I think."

McCoy snickered into his glass. "Woman's got a helluva mouth on her when she works up a head of steam."

"I wouldn't know," the Captain replied, keeping his face completely straight. "You'd have to ask Mister Spock."

"Jesus, now _there's_ a conversation I'd rather never have," McCoy muttered, shuddering very slightly.

"So is there?" Kirk politely enquired.

McCoy frowned again. "Is there what?"

The Captain sighed and rolled his eyes. "Is there something going on between you and McDonald?"

"Not that it's really any of your business, Jimbo, but no, there isn't. I mean, she's smart, and funny, and between you and me, very nicely put together, but…"

"But just a bit _too_ smart?" Kirk finished for him.

"Yeah."

"And there's only room for one bitter, cynical, sarcastic smartass in your relationships, right?"

The doctor huffed. "You're funny."

"Thanks."

McCoy drained the last of his Scotch, let out a contented sigh and reached for the bottle on the shelf to pour them both another shot.

"This is my last night in the clink, so I might take a wander over to McDonald's quarters tomorrow, make sure she's survived her sentence in one piece."

"You do that," Kirk said with an approving nod. "But no more plotting, okay?"

"The hell are we gonna plot?"

"No clue. But a month ago, if someone had told me that you and one of the engineers would make a secret deal to run a water slide through my ship, I'd have sent them down to Geoff for psychiatric evaluation."

McCoy waved the Captain's concerns away. "That was a one-off, Jim. Trust me. We're not gonna pull any more idiotic stunts in or with your precious ship."

"Promise?"

Now it was the doctor's turn to roll his eyes. "Promise," he obediently repeated.

********************

True to his word, the very next day, as soon as his shift was done, McCoy took a stroll to McDonald's quarters to find out how she was getting on. The thirty day suspension period had almost driven _him_ round the bend, so God only knows what it had done to her, especially given the microscopic size of her room. His own none too spacious accommodations were positively palatial in comparison to the engineer's.

Much to his relief and surprise, she seemed to have taken her prison sentence completely and totally in her stride.

"Glad to see it didn't bother you too much," he told her as he wandered into the compact space. "Was half convinced you'd be barking at the walls by now."

She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. "Drove my pure mad for the first few days, but then I came up with a wee project to keep me busy."

"Oh, yeah? What kind of project?" he asked with slightly narrowed eyes.

She gestured at her workspace desk, which was covered in all manner of electronic and printed maps.

"I've been going through the schematics for the secondary cargo holds down at the end of the lower hull," she explained. "I'm trying to build up a good mental image of how all the phase conductors connect together."

"Right," he said, trying and failing to sound enthused. It wasn't _his_ idea of an interesting way to pass the time, but each to their own. She probably wouldn't much care to sit through a caesarean, either.

"And there's an interesting cargo hold right here," she continued, pointing to a section on one of the maps. "It's where we store all of the large, non-perishable, non-fragile stuff we don't use very often. Transport crates, shield panels, emergency shelter components, bags of raw plascrete mix, and so on. It's a section of the ship nobody ever really goes into, unless they're attached to the Quartermaster's crew, and even then, maybe once in a blue moon."

"And?" he prompted, wondering if there was any risk of her getting to the bloody point.

"And from what I can tell, it's actually a bit of a maze down there. Very well shielded, but with all of these weird spots where the artificial gravity zones run into each other. Which got me thinking," she revealed.

"About what?" he cautiously asked, almost dreading the response. From what she'd just told him, there was only one reason to visit that section of the ship if it wasn't part of your daily routine, and that was to cause or join some kind of trouble. And knowing McDonald as he now did, that would almost certainly be trouble with a capital 'T'.

She rested her hands on her hips, cocked an inquisitive brow and flashed him one of her naughty grins.

Oh, God. This woman was going to get him killed. He was going to die a painful, ignominious death, somewhere down in the dark and dusty guts of the ship, in the all-consuming shadow and silence of space.

"Leonard, my dear, by any chance, have you ever heard of something called _paintball_?"


End file.
